A Story With Particular Resonance

Posted on 10th March, 2022

Some time ago, I wrote about The Italian House by Teresa Crane, which I have always firmly belived should have a warning emblazoned across the cover:

 

Beware! If you read this book, you will want to sell everything you possess and move to Italy.

 

This week I'm sharing my review of The Olive Grove by Eva Glyn and as I was reading, I kept thinking that here's another book that deserves a similar Beware! warning.

 

Eva Glyn is the pen name of Jane Cable and if you're a regular visitor here, you'll know how much I admire her writing. As always with Eva/Jane, you get an absorbing, compelling and well-crafted story in which the layers are peeled away until you finally arrive at the truth.

 

 

I suppose that having given the Beware! build-up, I ought to start with the book's setting. We are in Croatia and the various settings are beatifully drawn. The descriptions are just gorgeous and appeal to all the senses.

 

The characters are richly drawn as well. The heroine is Antonia. In some ways, this is a "starting again" story - a type of tale that I think resonates very deeply with many people, appealing as it does to the "if only" and the "if I could do it all again" feelings that we all have from time to time. In Antonia's case, having extricated herself from a relationship with a married man, she embarks not just upon a new job but upon a move not simply to a new home but actually to a new country. Cue all those wonderful descriptions.

 

She meets Damir, who is the other main character. Damir has been profoundly affected by his experiences of war during his young years. His has coped with the traumas of the past, but now an emotional upheaval in the present brings old feelings to the surface.

 

The story uses occasional flashbacks to explain in greater depth why certain things happen and, as always in a novel by Eva/Jane, there are surprises in the plot. The book has been thoroughly researched, but there no sense of the author pushing what she has learned into the story. Everything melts into the narrative in an entirely natural way. And of course, the story has a particular resonance when read in the light of current events.

 

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The Olive Grove on Amazon  

 

 

 

 

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Comments (2)

You're very welcome, Jane. I have loved your books ever since I read Another You.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful review, Susanna - your good opinion means a great deal to me!